


How to Survive a Broken Heart

by faithtastic



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-06
Updated: 2011-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:39:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithtastic/pseuds/faithtastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Tabula Rasa, Tara rebounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Survive a Broken Heart

It's been raining for three days, non-stop. For a while it seemed like the world was drowning in a sea of raincoats and umbrellas but now only a thin spray of drizzle patters against the window pane. She glances at the dark green umbrella sitting in a small puddle beside her feet, broken spokes jutting through the fabric, and blows a cooling breath over the hot cup of coffee in her hands.

This is her fourth cup and she might even have another four. It's not like she has any place to be, and it's not like this place can afford to turn away customers. There's a whole wall of empty booths in front of her, all sticky red vinyl seats, and Formica tables. Obviously aiming for a 1950s diner theme, although it could be the genuine article, judging by the craggy, excessively made-up faces of the waitresses. They've probably worked here their whole lives.

For a moment she finds that thought oddly comforting, that in some places, things just go on uneventfully as they are. Like an engine ticking over.

She takes small sips at her coffee. It's sharp and bitter, and not how she normally drinks it - milky and sweet. Yet there's a not unpleasant kick in that acrid taste, a shot of pure caffeine to lift her from the vague fog that's surrounded her since she left, following her from Buffy's house to her dorm room, to this diner somewhere between the two.

After an hour or so, Tara thinks about heading back to the campus. There's laundry to be done and Miss Kitty Fantastico to be fed. It's easy to lose yourself in repetitive domestic chores. You still need clean clothes and fresh towels. These things don't stop just because your heart is broken, no matter what countless plaintive break-up songs would have you believe. And so the day is divided into manageable chunks - classes, lunch, more classes, sorting laundry, folding and ironing, dinner, studying, bathing, and so on - until it's time for bed. It's then that it hits her. Lying alone amongst sheets and pillows that still hold Willow's scent, no matter how many times they've been washed. Those are the hardest moments.

When she arrives back at her room, shaking droplets of rain off her skirt, she's surprised to find Buffy lounging outside, leaning against the wall and soaked to the skin. She has a feeling she knows what Buffy's here to say and it causes a little flourish of anger to rise up in Tara because she doesn't deserve it, to be made to feel like she's in the wrong.

"Hey, Buffy," she says, eyes downcast and voice flat, reaching into the cluttered depths of her bag for her keys.

Buffy pushes off from the wall, leaving a damp handprint on the painted surface. "Mind if I come in and dry off?"

Part of Tara wants to refuse but she's nothing if not accommodating to others - one proper look at the bedraggled girl in front of her and she knows that. "Of course not."

Tara lets Buffy in and flips on a couple of lamps. Even with the lights on, the room's still a little dingy. There are boxes still piled up in the corners, even though she's been here for two weeks now. Sticking to the moral highground is exhausting and somehow finding the desire to unpack has proved elusive. Never mind that unpacking gives this thing a permanence that she doesn't want to acknowledge.

Buffy tries to coax Miss Kitty off the bed while Tara roots around the boxes looking for towels. She manages to find a large yellow beach towel that's seen better days and hands it to Buffy. "Here."

"Thanks," Buffy says with a grateful smile. She looks around the room, taking in the chaos. "Settling in okay?"

It's a loaded question and Tara tries to avoid Buffy's eyes when she responds. "It's been hectic, with study and everything. H-how's Dawnie?"

"Upset."

The bluntness in Buffy's tone makes Tara flinch. She glances at her feet while the other girl towel dries her hair.

"You should call her. She misses you."

She'd tried phoning Dawn once but Willow had picked up and Tara just couldn't face talking to her at that moment. Her feelings were still too raw. Now... she doesn't trust herself not to be weak and accept Willow's explanations, to take her back without a second thought. Because she feels entitled to this self-imposed martyrdom. "It's difficult right now."

Buffy pauses, towel in hand. "My little sister worships the ground you walk on. Don't take whatever's going on with you and Willow out on her."

"I know." There's a long pause then Tara gives a small lop-sided smile. "I miss her." The smile falters. "I - I thought you'd come here to plead Willow's case or something."

Buffy shrugs, resuming drying her hair, roughly rubbing the rain-darkened strands. "I can't make excuses for what she did. But she's still my friend and I don't like to see her unhappy." She reaches out and briefly touches Tara's sleeve. "The same goes for you."

Tara's never really thought of herself being friends with Buffy outside her relationship with Willow. Sometimes she still feels like an outsider, intruding on an intimate circle of friends. During those moments, she has the greatest of empathy with Anya, her fellow interloper, and Tara is perhaps the person who most humours and tolerates the ex-vengeance demon's thoroughly mortal idiosyncracies. As for Buffy, they're not close, yet here Buffy is, not acting as a go-between, just inexplicably present.

Taking a seat on the bed beside the cat, Tara scratches Miss Kitty's ears and lets out a sigh. "I just don't know if I can trust her again."

Buffy sits beside her, marginally drier, and Miss Kitty gets skittish and leaps off the bed to creep behind one of the boxes in the corner. Slanted yellow eyes peer back at them. "If it's any consolation, I know how that feels. It takes time."

"The thing is..." Tara begins slowly, head bowed and staring at her lap, "I don't think I can love her the same way. She hurt me and lied to me and..." She shakes her head sorrowfully. "I can't put myself through that again."

It's only when she feels the brush of fingers on her face that Tara realises she's crying. Sure enough, her cheeks are wet and she feels her self-control crumble when she finally meets Buffy's gaze. She hasn't yet done this in front of anyone, not about Willow. Grief has always been something private, ever since her mother passed away. Squashed down and put away because her father and brothers hated to see any sign of weakness. Under Buffy's sincere stare - something it feels so strange to be on the receiving end of - Tara feels like a raw nerve has been exposed.

Before she can flee, Buffy has Tara in a bear hug. She flounders, not used to this level of physical contact. For some reason she'd always thought Buffy would be hard as steel - after all, she's seen what kind of punishment the Slayer is capable of meting out - so she isn't prepared for this, is disconcerted by how soft and pliant the other girl is. Warm, despite the layers of damp clothing.

Once her tears have subsided, Tara realises there isn't really a dignified way to end the hug. She's conscious of her plumpness compared to Buffy's lean frame, is aware of the sharp jut of Buffy's narrow hip against her more cushioned one. She knows Willow likes her fuller figure, the pillowy softness of her thighs and belly and breasts but she feels uncertain around Buffy, who's the personification of athletic and blonde and pretty.

"You're comfortable," Buffy says softly, as if intercepting her thoughts, cheek burning hot against Tara's ear, pulse loud like thunder. Still her grasp is tight around Tara's ribs.

She doesn't know what to say, doesn't exactly know what's going on here, why she feels this pressure in her chest that has nothing to do with Buffy's strength or why she's disappointed when Buffy finally releases her.

What she knows, tangibly, is that those eyes are only inches away from hers. Buffy reaches up and tucks escapee hairs behind Tara's ear and she fights the instinct to lean into the touch. Fingers hover there indefinitely and Tara has a perverse thought. Wonders what those fingers would feel like on her skin and expects that they would be strong and sure, perhaps rough from years of fashioning makeshift stakes.

A memory returns to her unbidden. Pillow talk one night with Willow with what seemed like hundreds of candles lit and blinking around their bed. A fire hazard, yes, but wonderfully romantic. She'd asked Willow, half-teasing, if she'd ever fantasised about Buffy. She remembers how hard Willow blushed, how she huffed and blustered and finally refused to answer, as if it was disrespectful or something taboo. And yet Tara recalls clearly the hours Willow spent repairing the Buffybot, the way she touched the inanimate thing that wore Buffy's face with such reverence, such care.

Looking at Buffy now and knowing her, Tara understands how it is that Buffy inspires such devotion and really doesn't blame Willow for being half in love with her best friend. It's difficult to compete with 'the one girl in all the world.'

"Willow was so lucky to have you," Buffy says, hand moving to Tara's hair, barely touching the pale strands. "I just wanna shake her and make her..." Buffy's eyes fix intently on Tara, making her flush. "See that."

"I - " Tara begins, faltering, not knowing what to say, not understanding why Buffy's telling her this.

Miss Kitty darts across the room, chasing shadows, and Tara looks away. Suddenly the air in this room is thin and difficult to breathe. She stands abruptly and walks over to the window, fixing her stare on a single point in the darkness and willing herself to be calm, trying to convince herself that it's only kindness from one friend to another, certainly nothing to get worked up about.

"I've embarrassed you," Buffy says from behind, her voice disconcertingly close to Tara's ear.

Startled, Tara turns round. She never heard the other girl approach. "N - no."

"I have. I'm sorry." There's a crease of worry on Buffy's forehead and Tara suppresses the desire to smooth it with her fingertips. This woman has such a burden to carry without adding Tara to her concerns and Tara desperately wants to tell her that. "It's just that lately I find myself thinking about how good you are for Willow and how lost she is without you and I wonder... what it would be like to have a Tara instead of -- "

Buffy doesn't finish. Doesn't need to.

"Oh," Tara says, more an exhalation of breath than a word. Then again, "oh," as Buffy tilts her head and steps closer. The third is lost against Buffy's soft lips, which taste of cherry chap stick and rainwater and an underlying sweetness that Tara can't place. It's not the kiss of a powerful, battle-hardened woman, just the kiss of a girl who's never kissed another girl before, bold and curious.

Buffy's hand comes up to her ear again, stroking the sensitive skin behind it, and Tara sinks into the maddening touch, stomach fluttering. Trust Buffy to find that little erogenous zone immediately. It took Willow weeks to find it in her explorations and that recalcitrant thought brings a sudden stab of guilt so forceful that Tara feels like the air has been knocked out of her lungs.

She dearly wants to stop this but Buffy's lips have moved to her neck and from that point there's really no going back. Tiny kisses and nips down her throat and all Tara can do is let her eyes slide shut.

"Buffy," she whispers half-heartedly, drawing teeth over her lower lip. "We shouldn't -- "

The other girl's tongue paints a warm, wet stripe up her neck and Tara whimpers. She opens her eyes to look at Buffy. Hot and shivery and speechless, Tara just looks at her, both frightened and excited by the desire she sees reflected back at her. It was never this way with Willow. It was tender, loving, sweet. They lived together and they loved each other, and were inseparable friends too, but Tara never truly believed that Willow wanted to rip her clothes off. It always seemed enough - to feel complete and nurtured and sort of non sexual. How politely lesbian they must have seemed to everyone with their cat and spells and discreet hand-holding.

Not exactly Willow's fault but they'd slipped into this comfortable routine and somehow the sensuality had got lost along the way, only for complacency and deception to take its place.

She tries to rationalise this. They're on a break. She's lonely and there's no comfort in solitude, no matter what she keeps telling herself. Besides, it was Willow who betrayed her.

"Do you want to stop?" Buffy asks, a distinct tremble in her voice. "We can pretend it never happened. I inherited the amazing power of denial from my Mom, you know."

Tara licks her lips and finds herself fascinated by Buffy's eyes, transfixed by the engorged darkness of pupils surrounded by a thin circle of green. "Right this moment? I want you. So much."

"And screw the consequences?"

Tara nods.

At that Buffy smiles, so genuinely and widely that for a moment she resembles the Buffybot. Because the real Buffy hasn't smiled like that since... well, since before she came back.

The smile quickly fades as that look of intensity steals across Buffy's face again. "You'll need to guide me through this," she says as she shrugs off her jacket. "My girl-on-girl experience is severely limited. Despite what Xander would like to believe, Faith and I were not an item."

"I'm a good teacher," Tara says with a lop-sided grin, striving for confidence that she doesn't feel as she reaches for the hem of Buffy's top, pulling it up and off. If her hands are shaking as she pops the button on Buffy's jeans, neither comment. She's breathing erratically now as she drags down the zip - it's a rasping noise that's always seemed faintly rude to Tara and she tries not to giggle.

She puts her hand flat against Buffy's stomach and feels the muscles tense. Buffy is coiled like a spring and Tara comprehends now what it means to be empowered.

They surge together, kissing again and Buffy's mouth opens to the tentative press of Tara's tongue, meeting it with her own and there's the shock of cool saliva as they slide over and under, sending a jolt straight to Tara's groin.

The kiss is broken off for Buffy to kick off her jeans and to begin undressing Tara, shedding coat, shirt and skirt in rapid succession. They stand in their underwear gazing at each other. For a moment Tara wonders if Buffy has lost her nerve and is about to offer an avenue of escape when Buffy reaches behind and unclasps her bra, pushing the straps off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor.

Tara's never seen Buffy look so vulnerable, not since her mother died. "You're so beautiful," Tara whispers, awe-struck, taking in the expanse of tanned skin, small, firm breasts, and dark pink nipples. Once again, Tara feels ungainly and large in comparison. Thinks how comical and mismatched they would look standing side by side naked, how unlikely this scenario is. Any second now she keeps expecting to wake up and find that this is all some sordid product of her fertile imagination.

But Buffy closes the gap between them, pressing warm kisses across Tara's collarbone, touching pale flesh with the tip of her tongue, listening out for the small hitch in Tara's breathing. Their hands are on each other, marking out a path over ribs and curves, stroking skin and evoking ripples of sensation. Tara seeks out Buffy's mouth as Buffy's fingers find the clasp of her bra, briefly interrupting the kiss as the offending garment is tossed away.

"You d-don't seem so inexperienced," Tara says breathlessly, goosebumps rising on her skin in the wake of Buffy's light touch, as blunt fingernails make a haphazard trail up her back.

"It's been on my mind for a while - seducing you."

"Oh!" Tara gasps as Buffy's hand slips around front, taking one nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisting gently. Her mouth fastens over the other nipple. "Really?"

"Mmm." Buffy's response is muffled by Tara's skin yet she feels it thrumming through her bones, beginning at the base of her spine and shooting upwards like a crack of lightning conducted by her vertebrae.

They're on the floor now, despite there being a perfectly comfortable bed not a few steps away, and the carpet is rough against Tara's bare back. Buffy's crouching over her, an almost feral expression on her face, and the still wet ends of Buffy's hair tickle Tara's chest as it rises and falls with every breath. Watching the other girl's face, Tara slips her hand inside Buffy's panties, cupping the hothouse warmth, middle finger pushing into damp curls. Immediately upon contact Buffy's eyelids flutter shut, her head tilting back, exposing the sloping line of her throat.

Tara pushes more, her finger testing wetness, rubbing up and down the hot cleft and Buffy rocks with her slowly, picking up the pace as Tara slides deeper, deeper still, until she's inside and Buffy groans at the welcome intrusion. She's so wet, so staggeringly wet, that Buffy hardly notices the addition of a second then a third finger.

Buffy's moving faster, pushing against Tara's fingers, planting her knees wide on either side of Tara's hips, their pebbled nipples skimming flesh with each shuddering movement, their bodies forming a sort of graceless, primal rhythm.

So wet and Tara knows Buffy can take more. When a fourth finger slips in Buffy grunts and clenches around Tara's hand, drawing those fingers further in, hips jerking ever more erratically as she rides them.

Tara can hardly keep up, her arm is tiring and the static numbness of pins and needles is setting in, but she matches Buffy's pace and allows her thumb to graze lightly against the other girl's clit, swollen as it is. At that Buffy jerks harder, rubbing herself almost violently against Tara's thumb, straining against her, and with one final stroke, Tara presses the hardened bundle of nerves, eliciting a strangled moan from Buffy.

Labouring for breath, Buffy rests her head on Tara's chest, blonde hair splayed out across plump breasts. With her free hand, Tara strokes Buffy's back, tracing idle patterns on her skin. They stay like that for minutes, until Buffy becomes uncomfortable and sits back. As she does so, Tara carefully removes her fingers, missing the molten warmth immediately. Her hand is soaked and the waft of sex reaches her nostrils in waves. She's always liked the smell of girls, the sweet and musty scent of sex with girls.

They're silent for minutes, looking at each other anew. Buffy looks positively dishevelled and Tara finds herself struggling not to smirk. How tawdry it seems yet she can't help feeling accomplished and a little bit smug. The guilt, she is sure, will come later, when she's alone.

She props herself up on her elbows, aware of the tell-tale tingle of carpet burn on her back. "I want to make you come again." Says it casually, as if she's remarking on the weather.

It's worth it for the startled look Buffy gives her, lips curling in amusement. "Tara, you dark horse."

It's true. Those sort of obscene things don't normally leave her mouth but she feels outside herself now. Like she's possessed - a mouthpiece for some carnal being. No longer shy, meek Tara, frightened to ask for what she wants. Willow would be scandalised; Tara doesn't care anymore.

She smiles, her large, sleepy eyes pinning Buffy with intent. "Well, they say it's always the quiet ones."


End file.
